There is only one of my direct ancestors whose ancestors were already on North American soil when everyone else arrived.

As is the case with most Americans, the rest of my ancestors came from somewhere else.

I've had fair to middling luck at tracking a lot of people down on the arrival, and have been able then to keep up with them after that.

My great-great grandmother, Catherine Mueller, arrived in the United States from Germany with her family on 5 Sep 1832, aboard the Elizabeth, which sailed from Bremen, Germany. The family arrived at the port of New York.

Jacob (29), Elizabeth (27), Christine (11), Catherine (6), Elizabeth (2), and Jacob (newborn - perhaps on the ship in March of that year). Castle Garden records show that Jacob, Sr. did not declare a destination once he arrived.

With the exception of Catherine, I have never been able to track the rest of the family once they arrived in the United States. With Catherine, it was only after she was an adult and married my great-great grandfather, Jacob Williams. As far as I can tell, they lived in Franklin Co., KY all their lives.

I briefly tried some searches for them in Germany, but Mueller is as common a surname there as Smith is here. I've searched US census records for Mueller, Muller, and Miller, and after all these years, still cannot definitively identify them from those records.